Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2005 17:39:40 +0000 From: Taylor Quest Subject: The Day the Earth Moved Chapter 2 DISCLAIMER: This story is a work of fiction. The plot and actions herein are entirely fictional with no basis on actual events. This story is for pure entertainment purposes only and does not suggest the actual sexuality of any or all characters involved. This story contains sexual situations between consenting males. If this is not legal in your area, don't read it. The Day the Earth Moved By Taylor W. Quest Chapter 2 "Holy shit," Tay yelled as a section of the elevator started to buckle on top of him. I grabbed his arm and yanked him up from the floor and held onto him. Frantically I kicked at the doors to the elevator, of course they wouldn't budge. By now it was close to deafening. We couldn't hear anything except the screaming of metal and grinding of cement splitting apart. The fluorescent tubes above us exploded and the elevator was filled with a dim red glow from the emergency light above. "Taylor, your going to have to climb up, we can't get out this way," I yelled at him. He stared blankly at me. "Damn it, Taylor snap out of it, your family is up there," I screamed as I slapped him. Taylor seemed to snap out of it and started clawing his way up to the open service way door above us. After pushing him up on top of the elevator I climbed up. Nearly slipping and falling on my ass. Everything was still shaking uncontrollably. Right in front of us was the first floor entry. The elevator had crashed through the secondary floor and rammed right down into the sub floor of the shaft. Somehow I pulled the door's open and pushed Taylor up. I found myself slipping as he reached back down to pull me up. I heard a loud snap and looked up. The mechanical drive shaft and turbines of the elevator manifold had shook loose from their anchor at the top floor and they were plummeting toward me. "Holy shit, Taylor help me," I screamed as he pulled. Before I knew it I slid up and out onto the floor of the hallway as a mass of twisted metal collided with the elevator car in a shower of sparks at the bottom. If we had not escaped when we did, we would have been killed instantly. By now it was nearly impossible to stand up, everything around us was rocking left to right. The frame work of the hotel was buckling. We darted under a doorway and held on. All around us the ceilings were splitting open the floors were sinking. Glancing to our left we saw a mass of people huddled under the conference tables. Zac and Ike were no where to be seen. I high pitched scream rang out from somewhere behind us and suddenly something smashed against us. I fell to the floor, stunned and unable to move. I thought for a moment that I barely saw Taylor's hand beside my face. My vision blurred and went dark. As I went unconscious the rumbling continued. -- "This is CNN News, we are interrupting our normal news cast to bring you this urgent news special report. We are currently receiving word from the U.S. Geological Survey that an earthquake of massive proportions is currently tearing through central and southern California. The Survey is stating that this earthquake started six minutes ago, at a ranking like nothing they've ever seen. It is reported that at eleven forty two am Pacific Daylight time that the Richter scales registered a tremor of three point eight. This tremor grew to a size of seven point nine within less than a minute. They are stating that it has tapered off and is continuing at a level of thirteen point nine on the Richter scale." "We have been attempting to bring you some kind of live feed from our Los Angeles offices but so far nothing has been able to make it past the San Andres fault line. Wait! I'm getting in more information this second. It seems that the earthquake began directly in the center of the San Andreas fault. It has spread outwards toward the California coast line. The following areas have been touched by this tragic incident. Los Angeles, Hollywood, San Jose, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Fresno, and San Diego. There are reports from the Mexican government that all of Baja California has completely sunk beneath the ocean surface. We are getting reports that tremors, power outages and structural damages are being caused all the way inland as far away as Las Vegas. Other sources report that analysts are concerned about the integrity of the Hoover Dam." "Once again a massive earthquake registering at fourteen point two on the Richter scale has hit the state of California. The tremors are being felt as far west as Las Vegas and in the north the states of Arizona and Oregon are reporting tremors as well as Washington. This earthquake is continuing as we speak. We are now in contact with a news source on the scene, it seems that the E! Entertainment TV News chopper is in the air at this very moment over Hollywood, visuals are not available but we do have a audio feed. E! Entertainment TV Go ahead your are live across the world." "This is Jules Asner for E! Entertainment Television, what I am witnessing is not only devastating but indescribable. Through the dust in the air it's nearly impossible to see anything, we're not even sure the chopper will be able to stay in the air much longer. Briefly we caught glimpses of this terrible ongoing tragedy. The rumbling has subsided now but aftershocks are still rolling across the landscape beneath us. What I did see was horrible, we were just over Beverly Hills on a live feed covering the kick off conference with Hanson at The Beverly Hills Hotel that was to be followed by a concert this evening." "At first all we saw were people running about, then we noticed that the trees, stop lights, telephone poles and anything that was standing had begun to rock back and forth. Soon we could actually hear the rumbling. I watched as the Beverly Hills Hotel began to collapse. The dust clouds were growing too dense for our engines and we had to move away. Departing the area we passed Hollywood. After this, there won't be anything left, besides the massive structural damage to every standing building in sight the landscape has actually shifted. Los Angeles... is gone. What remains is, well it's nearly impossible to see." "Jules, no doubt the loss of life will be in the millions, what about the integrity of the buildings, can you tell us anything about the landmarks, is anything left? Is there any hope?" "No, everything has gone down. From the Chinese Theater all the way into Los Angeles, it's all down, it's all gone. Everything, I don't think there is a building left standing....." -- I opened my eyes slowly, it was quiet. I could hear distant crackling, perhaps a fire. I found it extremely hard to breath I knew I was being crushed under something extremely heavy. I tried to move but I couldn't. Looking over my back I saw that the massive wood beam that made the doorway had fallen down on me. Above it was, was the sky. The sun was shining through a dense cloud of gray that was passing over head. I found that while I couldn't push the beam off of me that I could at least slide out from under it slowly. My head was pounding, and my left arm hurt like a mother. I stood up and looked around. The entire hotel had collapsed. There were still massive chunks of it standing. Much of the outer walls were still upright but most of the building had come apart and fallen away, or in on it's self. The room we had been in was an outer area, nothing had thankfully fallen down on us. Only the roof had collapsed. And the elevator, that was horrible. I turned around and looked down at where I had been. There was sheet rock and plaster, splinters of wood and a foot of dust everywhere. Frantically I called Taylor's name. "Taylor, Taylor are you there, are you ok," I screamed as loud as I could. I heard nothing. A shifting started and an aftershock rumbled through. More of the outer structure fell away from the building. I heard a groan. I looked behind me through a pile of debris, all I saw was the top of a doorway, the door way that lead to the stairwell. Which extended up over the ruin about thirty feet and abruptly stopped in mid air. I climbed over the debris and looked down into the entrance. Taylor was laying on his back, it appeared that he had been knocked out but nothing had struck him. The steel metal frame of the door had protected him from pretty much all of the falling debris. I was sure that if he hadn't been in the doorway he would have been killed. "Taylor, Tay are you ok," I asked quietly as I pulled him up into a sitting position. He slowly opened his eyes and looked at me. Even covered in dust and dirt, his gorgeous blue eyes shined. He smiled at me, I smiled back. I groaned inside, even in the midst of all this hell I so desperately wanted to kiss him. He was alive, and all right. I heard a more feminine moan behind him. I looked up and saw nothing but a pile of sheetrock and wood splinters. The pile moaned again. "Bloody hell," a feminine voice I knew all too well cursed out of the debris. "Geri, is that you," I yelled as Taylor and I stood up and started to pull junk off of the top of the heap. "No it's Marilyn Monroe, of course it's me," she snapped still unseen under the rubble. "Can you move," Taylor asked. "If I could, I wouldn't be waiting for you two numb nuts to get me out," she replied angrily. Taylor looked at me with a bit of a worried look. "Geri it's me Taylor and, Taylor," I said aloud only realizing how weird that sounded after I said it. "What? Oh wonderful I get my bum tossed down ten flights of stairs and who rescues me? Some guy with split personalities!" "GERI It's Taylor Hanson and Taylor Quest," I yelled at her not so kindly. "Oh, oh God help me get out of this," she said as she started shoving and kicking at the pile from the inside. A fist flew out of the rubble, pulled back in and two hands popped out shoving more debris aside. Then her face squeezed out, covered in dirt with a slight trickle of blood running from her hair line. "Well are you two going to stand there watching me crawl out of this like some kind of warped, never mind I just do not have the strength to go on," she said slumping to the side. We jumped and grabbed her arms and slowly pulled her out of the pile and helped her to her feet. "Thank you so much, another few seconds and I might have rescued myself, now what the hell happened?!" "All I can guess is the 'Big One' finally hit," Tay replied. "Yeah, that makes sense. I was coming down the stairs when I felt a tremor. I stopped and looked around. It was then everything started to bloody shift and twist, dust was falling all over me and I couldn't see. I was running down the stairs and I just felt myself getting tossed off the steps. I remember hitting the wall, that's where I got this, damn that hurts. And I balled up and fell down the rest of the way. I screamed as I saw I was about to hit the bottom and then I blacked out. I awoke to hear you talking to Taylor and that's when you pulled me out," Geri said as we started climbing our way toward the grand ball room. Or what was left of it. The breeze was blowing and a tattered 'Hanson' banner flapped in the wind. Taylor had calmly been searching for his family but by now it was seeming pretty hopeless. I felt awful as I watched him jump and start screaming the names of everyone he had been with. Trying to ignore the situation I focused on what he was doing and I tried not to laugh at one point, simply because he called out to so many names I was starting to wonder just how big his family really was. My head jerked around as I thought I had heard a faint yelling but I wasn't sure. We helped up a few people who were still alive, many of them were not. I heard a female voice come from behind in the restaurant. I pulled open the doors to get a face full of smoke. The kitchen must have caught fire. I heard a girls voice calling from deep within the smoke. I ran back to the hall way and ripped down a curtain and dumped over a water cooler that had made it through the quake untouched and soaked the curtain. After pulling it over my head I rushed into the room. "Hello, is anyone in here, there's a fire we have to get out of here," I screamed as I peered out of the curtain into the smoke. The electricity must have been still working slightly because the room would brighten and dim sporadically. The restaurant was the only room that still had it's roof. Much of the walls were bare with countless photos of celebrities shattered on the floor. I heard more screaming and yelling coming from deeper in the restaurant. I called out and got a reply. "Is anyone in here, we have to get out the restaurant is on fire," I yelled out. "Yes, help me, I'm over here," a girls voice screamed. Suddenly I felt someone against me. Turning around I found that Taylor had caught up with me and was under the curtain now. "I couldn't find them, Jammer was ok, he said that mom and dad and the kids had gone to eat lunch in here," Taylor told me as we pawed around in the dark. "Where is Geri," I asked. "She's out there helping people, she's really cool, she's a tough chick," Taylor replied with what I thought to be a smile. It was too dark to tell. Then we heard more screaming right in front of us. I felt a tug and looked down, there was a girl on the floor with long dark hair and she was pulling on my leg. A beam from the ceiling had fallen and was on her left foot. "Help me get up, I can walk I just need help," she said. "I dropped the curtain, the flames and smoke weren't that bad where we were. I pushed with all my strength at the beam and it tilted slightly and she was able to get her foot free. She stood up and turned around. "There are people over there, back there I think and down there, and well I'm not sure if my friend is ok," she exclaimed. Her face was extremely familiar. But it was smudged with soot and dust and that made it even harder in the dark. Still her voice was so familiar I almost could recognize it. "Well are you going to stand there like an idiot or are you gonna help me," she snapped as she struggled to lift their table that had fallen on her friend. "Fuck it, I'll do it myself," she snapped again. I heard a voice come from under the table it called her name. "Love, Love where are you," the voice called. 'Love,' where had I heard that name? I seemed to remember that there was someone. Jennifer Love Hewitt! I was shocked as hell, then I remembered where I was. I snapped out of my daze and pushed her back and heaved with all my might as debris slid off the collapsed table and fell as I heaved the table over to the side. The girl wasn't recognizable, Jennifer on the other hand was, now that I knew who she was. She, and her 'sweater', ok so she wasn't wearing one but still I did giggle to myself when I thought about the last time I had heard about her. It was on TV and someone made the joke about 'I Still Know What You Did Last Summer." That it starred Jennifer Love Hewitt and her sweater. She looked up at me and smiled. "Thanks, I didn't mean to snap like that," she said as she smiled. Her cute smile shining through the gunk. She helped her friend up and headed out a window nearby. I turned around to see Taylor moving deeper into the back of the restaurant. I was walking over toward him when I nearly tripped over something. I looked down and saw an arm sticking out from under a beam. I followed the arm to a blue sun dress and pushed away a chunk of sheet rock. The beam had fallen from the ceiling and the end had landed square on the chest of Cindy Crawford crushing her like a walnut. Sure she might have been a ditz but I was sad nonetheless. Just as I suspected there was no pulse. I stood up as Taylor walked over. He glanced down and gasped. "Oh man, Cindy Crawford, that's bad man real bad," Taylor remarked as looked like he didn't even know how to react. He covered his mouth as I stared down and then back up at him. It was then I remembered how he had met her before, and made a big deal about it. I put my arms around him and hugged him. Another shock ran through the area and we lost our balance and fell to the floor. Jennifer came trampling back in cussing at her cell phone. "Nothing works, the cell phones, the pay phones, either it's dead, busy or tied up," she exclaimed throwing the cell phone down as she looked over at Cindy. "Oh my God," she said in shock looking down. She then glanced over at us. "Taylor Hanson," she asked as she pushed a lock of his blond hair behind his ear. "Yeah, hey," he said sniffling raising his head from my shoulder. "Oh whoa, I'm so glad your ok," Jennifer said as she lost her balance as another shock jolted the remnants of the building. "We had better get out of here," Taylor said as he looked behind him. "I thought your parent's might be in here," I asked as I looked into the back of the restaurant. "There's no one back there except some old people," he said as he looked back at us. "Well help me get Cindy up and out of here, I don't want her going up in smoke with the rest of this place," Jennifer commented as she uncovered Cindy's body from the sheet rock. Taylor and I lifted the beam slightly as Jennifer pulled on Cindy's arms dragging her out from under the beam. I picked her up and carried her outside to the lawn where we laid her down and covered her up with a curtain. "Who's that," some really beat up reporter asked as we headed back in. "Cindy Crawford," I commented with out looking. Little did I know the reporters mouth dropped open and he sat down looking like a lost kid. We went back in, the flames had gotten hotter and were starting to fill the back area. I heard a coughing coming from in the back and someone started to stumble out. "Come on Joan, that's it, you can do it, this old bird isn't down yet, oh hi kids, got any water I'm parched," Joan Rivers coughed as she stumbled out into the light. Hair a mess, dress blackened and torn, eyeliner running and coughing like a tuberculosis patient. "Joan Rivers! Oh my God, you survived," Jennifer called out. "Ha, hey kiddo, nothing can keep a Jew down, not even the 'Big One." Joan chuckled at us as we helped her out through the window. We all started to laugh a bit, Joan really was making it easier for us to handle things. Her comedy was a real uplift. Taylor saw Jammer and ran over to him and came back to us. It seemed that the family had gone out to eat elsewhere and they were able to contact them over the radio, they were fine, a little shaken up, but they were fine. Fine after they had carefully crawled out of the back of their van that was hanging by a sewer pipe over a two hundred foot drop in the middle of Sunset Blvd. We were standing outside near the road way. By now more people had gathered, a few cops had rolled up in some really banged up patrol cars. The streets had been shattered by the quake and foot deep cracks and pot holes were everywhere. I walked over and leaned against a limo that a tree had fallen over on. We were all talking when Geri came up smiling at us. "How's it all goin'," she asked with a smile. "Oh much better, Tay's family is fine, Joan's got some water and Jennifer's friend will be ok," I replied as everyone started laughing at Joan who was acting suddenly ill and decrepit after a sip of water she exclaimed 'Oh God, it's California tap water, I think I'll die!' I felt a nudge from the limo. It shifted and I heard a thump. We all turned around, there was pounding on the window. We heard a woman shout 'get back'. Then before we knew what was happening a high heeled tan shoe smashed through the window. We all flinched and jumped back as Mary Hart pulled herself from the limo. "I've seen it all now," Joan cracked as she sipped more of her water. "Give it a while Joan, I'm sure we can top it," Mary replied as we helped her out of the window. "Are you ok Ms. Hart," I asked with concern. "Oh yes thank you, so was that an earthquake or was that an earthquake," she asked as she looked down dusting her herself off. Not noticing the decimation all around her she had her classic Entertainment Tonight smile. She then looked up and saw it all. "Oh dear God," was all she said as she covered her mouth. The sight was truly unlike anything we had thought could happen. There wasn't a home in sight standing and the Beverly Hills Hotel was completely destroyed. Smoke was rising in the distance and faint gas explosions could be heard. Another aftershock rumbled through knocking us all to the ground. The rumble continued for another fifteen seconds and subsided. There really wasn't that much left to crumble away. Taylor tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a secluded bush. I followed him over there, not realizing Geri had seen us leave. "What's up," I asked. "I just wanted to thank you, you know, for saving my life," Taylor said as what I thought was a tear formed in his eye. "Oh hey no problem, after all you did pull me up from the elevator shaft as that machinery came down," I reminded him. "Yes, but if you hadn't slapped me we wouldn't have made it out at all," he replied. "Taylor, I, well I just," I stuttered at him. Not knowing what to say. I was so, so... What was it? Was I in love with him? My heart jumped as I realized it. In love with him, not just a crush, a crush wouldn't have made me risk my life. A crush wouldn't have made me feel like this. I've had crushes before they weren't anything like this. I couldn't say a word. I just stared at him, just knowing that he was ok was making it all bearable. "Shh, don't say anything," he said placing his soft index finger over my lips. He smiled softly at me, slowly he leaned in. I could feel his breath on my mouth. "Ahheeeem," we both snapped our heads around to see Geri peering in at us from outside the bushes. "And what are you two love birds doing, you know snogging in public will land you in a tabloid," she said with one hand on her hip and a smirk on her face. "We weren't, I mean I was, well he," I stuttered trying to cover for Taylor. "Hey, just thought I'd let you know I got two helicopters on the way, one for your family Tay, and one for us three," she smiled. "How did you get helicopters," Tay asked in shock ignoring her comments about the situation she had found us in. "I'll have you know your talking to a United Nations Good Will Ambassador," Geri exclaimed proudly as she dusted her chest off and tried to stand tall. Which only looked pathetic, her suit was ripped all over, her hair was hanging down from it's bun in strands. She had a small scab on her forehead and she was missing a shoe. "Geri, you know your a real nut," I said as I giggled at her. Taylor and I smiled at each other and he put his arm around me. I was really starting to get comfortable when another after shock hit us. This tossed Geri right into our laps. After the rumble subsided we could hear Joan cursing, her water had spilled everywhere. "Anyone got any liquor?!" she yelled out. We all burst into laughter. Chapter 3 coming soon! For more on this story and others be sure to visit: http://www.tangibledreams.net/tribute